Case study sample · Step 1 of 2 · R&D qualification under deadline
Project Health Check
A fast read on an R&D qualification effort with a leadership meeting in three business days.
Executive readout
Northfield Analytics is a fictional professional services organization preparing for a leadership review of R&D tax-credit qualification. The meeting is in three business days. Manual review of all candidate work would not finish in time with confidence. Overall status: Needs attention. Leaders need a defensible view of what qualifies, what evidence supports it, and where judgment is still required.
Scope and evidence
| Reviewed | Illustrative evidence |
|---|---|
| Sponsor briefing | Leadership expects a qualification summary, not a research project on tax code. |
| Work inventory | 42 candidate initiatives across Jira epics, design docs, and delivery notes. |
| Current process | Analysts review items one by one; the same coverage and traceability pack is estimated at roughly four weeks to produce manually. |
| Risk profile | Output must be traceable to source material and reviewable before the meeting. |
Top findings
| Status | Finding and consequence | Recommended response |
|---|---|---|
| Needs attention | There is no shared evaluation framework. Analysts apply inconsistent criteria under time pressure. | Define qualification criteria and evidence requirements before scaling review. |
| Needs attention | Manual review cannot meet the three-day deadline; comparable work is estimated at four weeks by hand. | Build an AI-assisted workflow with human review gates, not ad hoc prompting. |
| Needs attention | Leadership will ask how conclusions were reached. | Produce a traceability spreadsheet linking each item to sources and reviewer sign-off. |
| Healthy | Source systems and subject-matter owners are identifiable. | Use existing systems of record; do not create a shadow evidence repository. |
Decision requested
Approve a three-day workflow build: evaluation framework first, then AI-assisted review against approved sources, then human review and traceability output for the leadership meeting. Success means leaders can make decisions with confidence, not that the model decides for them.
All names, counts, and observations in this sample are illustrative. This is an example of the deliverable format, not a claim of client results.